What does it say about the state of modern fantasy, if these guys are considered the best in the business?
>>7892798
>'best'
>famous
>g. martin
My sides!
Who gives a shit? Its fantasy. Its for dorks.
>>7892852
Good, then it should appeal quite appropriately for you and the rest of the manlets on 4chin.
Being a committed fantasy writer requires a natural ability to be lost in another world. People who tend todo this are those who can't/don't want to deal with real goings on even more than the average person. His would tend to be ugly losers.
Picture makes perfect sense
>>7892798
Gaiman looked better when he was young.
>>7892798
I'm working on an epic fantasy series with subtle volkisch and antisemitic undertones
It means that Gene Wolfe, Lois McMasters Bujold, Dan Simmons, Harlan Ellison, Alan Moore, Connie Willis, Caitlin R. Kiernan, and Kathe Kujo can focus on producing their good writing instead of dealing with annoying fandoms, politically correct critics, and public opinion mandates.
>>7892898
>Gene Wolfe, Lois McMasters Bujold, Dan Simmons, Harlan Ellison, Alan Moore, Connie Willis, Caitlin R. Kiernan, and Kathe Kujo
Those are good writers, but they have limited audience appeal. And I don't mean the idiots who populate most of fantasy fandom. Yet even Gene Wolfe's most well known narrative tends to ward off serious readers, since much of his writing requires a broad context to be truly appreciated.
>>7892913
What I mean by that is that the highest quality fantasy writers are on the fringe, which doesn't help that genre fiction is already on an island. Why haven't more high-quality foundational works been produced in the last 25 or so years?
>>7892918
I'm personally glad they're on the fringe. They don't have to write for the readers so they've got the freedom to write well.
I see Gaiman and the other memelords as being a necessary evil in that they take the media attention and toxic fandom so Wolfe and the others don't have to.
Also, I'd consider Latro in the Mist to be a foundational work of the past 20 years and I'd be highly surprised if Alan Moore's Jerusalem doesn't turn out to be a masterpiece.
>>7892998
but they can do both. writing for a small circle is very untermensch
some of gene wolfe is fundamental, i consider him the crown of the dark fantasy and dying earth genres. problem is, he has very little direct influence on other writers, despite being loved by writers and critics. i'm a little bitter that some of gene wolfe's obscurity was an intended effect by him; he's not particularly flamboyant or much of a showman.
>>7893013
Mieville could have done that, but he never got past his punk/lovecraft/marxist phase. Shame, he's a pretty sexy man and could have raised fantasy's status in the public eye.
>>7893013
>writing for a small circle is very untermensch
zarathustra spoke to the masses once and gave up
he strove to create a small inner circle of disciples.
>>7893055
which is still untermensch. sri aurobindo arguably had a larger impact on the world than nietzsche.
>>7893013
The strange part about Wolfe's introductions to his storied and his comments about writing in general involve writing something which can be sold and writing for readers rather than for himself... great difficult artist believes he is writing for the people when in fact he is actually writing for obsessive and pedantic folks ( like myself). Like looking for the lowest common deniminator and instead integrating an infinite series.
>>7893101
Stories**
>>7893019
>phase
I think that's more a fundamental part of who Mieville is as a writer, if you remove those elements he'd just be another Jeff VanDermeer or whoever. And he's going more mainstream anyway, the next one is about a "surrealism bomb" going off in WWI Paris.
>>7893101
he may have done that because he had clarity about the broad scope of market success, but applied different principles to his own work because he knew what he set out to write. wolfe says that strong readers draw readers, and while his characters are well developed, they arent particularly charismatic or likeable. for example, sev is a social blockhead and raped at least one woman, and he's one of the least selfish characters in that world.
he knows he was being obscure, that's the hinge on which the majority of his work will survive on. botns never even engages in the purple prose that tolkien or harry potter's author indulges in. he pretty much strives to be unnoticed.
>>7893116
>strong readers draw readers
*strong characters draw readers
>he knows he was
*wolfe knows he was
man i gotta pay attention to editing
>>7893101
It's sound advice, even when you're targeting your work to a niche audience.
Writing, like all other arts and crafts, is often compulsory, but to most authors I imagine there would be little point to it if there wasn't an audience to consider.
